Backlight feature - how dark does it need to be?

My theater room is pretty dark during the day. Of particular relevance here, it's too dark to see the keys on my slide remote very well. However, the backlight will not turn on. I had to go into an almost pitch black room to confirm that the backlight was even working.

Couple questions: 1) I assume there's no way to make the backlight come on sooner by adjusting the threshold or anything; 2) can I cover up the light sensor to get the backlight to come on and, if so, where is it?

Are the batteries FRESH and at close to full charge? I have found that the back light will drain the batteries (remember it lights EVERY time you press a button like the skip, so we a having that back light come on and stay on a lot) very quickly, and the back light will get NOTICEABLY DIM as very short time passes.

Fresh batteries can make glow nice and bright, and within a few days (if used a lot) will dim. I always try to put up with the dimmest I can tolerate before I put in fresh batteries and the thing glows bright again.

Put in a couple of Lithium AA batteries. They will last an extremely long time. I got my first TiVo BT remote last year in October and the Lithium batteries are still showing a 100% charge on the SYS info screen.

I also stopped using it as often I used to because the remote thinks the room is dark in the room of one of my TiVo's that has a florescent bulb in the lamp. Now, I just activate the glow when it is night and the lamp is off. But, even then, the battery drains pretty fast if I use it a lot lack lots of skips.